“Which was?”
“Their birth-control pills!”
That was the point at which I began to suspect the interlocking nature of the events that had occurred. First the sexually threatening notes. Then the glue in the newlyweds’ Vaseline, the purloined royal diaphragm, the sabotaged bikini, and the booby-trapped bed that triggered the “Abandon Ship!” panic. And now the theft from a mounting mob of women of their birth-control pills. Obviously, all the incidents were part of some master-plan to cold-shower erotic enjoyment aboard the S.S. Lascivia!
And what about the death of the radio operator? Had that been an accident? Or could it have been deliberate murder? And if it was murder, was it also related to the anti-sex shenanigans? Was everything that had happened—the murder, the thefts, the sabotage—part of a conspiracy to keep the Lascivia from winning the race against the Queen William?
Mulling this over, I went down to my quarters. Besides the Scotch, there was something else I wanted to pick up before I joined Blaze Buxbocks. In case she’d been victimized like the rest of the ladies, I Wanted to be prepared.
The packet wasn’t there! My suitcase had been rifled and it was gone! The anti-sex fiend had struck again!
My condoms had been stolen!
So much for Blaze!
CHAPTER SIX
Dinner was served quite late that first night at sea. Understandable, what with all the confusion over abandoning ship, purloined promiscuity pills, and other bizarre happenings. Yet it came off smoothly, in the formal tradition of the luxury cruise.
I was seated at the Captain’s table-—-an honor that could only have been bestowed by order of Baron Duvivier, the owner of the Lascivia. I wore soup-and-fish—-also provided by the Baron. My place-card had me between Sister Stella -- still wearing her nun’s habit -- and an old biddy sporting a gold lamé evening gown encrusted with emeralds.
As we started on the first course, the overage dowager peered at me coldly through a diamond-studded lorgnette. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” she said. “I am Miss Amanda Lowell~Cabot of Boston, Massachusetts.”
The porthole! The Breast! The Derriere! It was hard to believe! . . . “I’m Steve Victor,” I told her.
“Are you related to the Newport Victors?”
Under the table, Sister Stella’s hand crept into my lap and unzipped my fly.
“No.” I answered Miss Lowell-Cabot.
“The Brookline Victors?”
Sister Stella fumbled inside my jockey shorts.
“Afraid not. But I do have relatives in Brooklyn.” I giggled hysterically. Sister Stella had just tickled my scrotum.
“I have never known anybody from Brooklyn!” Brr-rr! Miss Lowell-Cabot turned away and left me to cope with my appetizer—and Sister Stella.
Also seated at the Captain’s table were Ogden and Binny Stanford, Queen Nimmfetah, Mister Jewish, Blaze Buxbocks—a knockout in a topless, backless, formal black satin frock that thumbed its nose at Isaac Newton-—a young man, a middle-aged lady, and an older man in his early sixties. As to the last three, I knew something about each of them from Yenta’s dossiers. They were about as different, each from the other, as they could be.
The young man’s name was Buddy Fluker. He was an American. A high-school dropout, he was renowned as an international chess champion. Chess was his whole life. He neither drank, smoked, nor fooled around with women; he eschewed all forms of activity that might have interfered with his concentration on chess. Throughout the cruise, he rarely spoke to anyone. He simply sat and worked out problems on the small chess pegboard he always carried with him. That’s what he was doing now, his chessboard where his salad plate should have been, moving pawns and ignoring his dinner partners on either side of him.
The middle-aged lady was also an American. There the similarity ended. She was as bubbly-babbling as Buddy Fluker was taciturn. Her name was Zelda Popins and she was a schoolteacher from a small town in Kansas. A few months back, for the first time in her life, she’d bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket. When it hit, she became richer by half-a-million tax-free dollars. Captain Maldemerde had obviously staked Zelda out for his own, and she was having a ball parrying his none-too-subtle innuendos while leaning forward to bare an expanse of saggy décolletage to his beady little eyes. With all that “Yes-Yes!” in her own eyes, she figured to succumb to his nautical charm before many more knots were steamed.
The older man, seated on the other side of Zelda Poppins, had lived in Sicily for fifty years. However, he, too, was an American by birth. His father, a Sicilian immigrant, had been deported back to Italy because of certain Mafia activities when the son was twelve years old. Subsequently, the son had risen to become one of the top Mafiosos in Palermo. The Italian government had recently uncovered his American birth and used it as an excuse to deport him back to the United States. Having influence, he’d arranged to go straight to New York where he boarded the S.S. Lascivia. By the time the liner returned to New York, three months later, enough pertinent palms would have been greased to allow him to return to Sicily. His name was Mario Brandino.
At the moment, the aristocratic-looking Brandino was expressing his appreciation of the ship’s cuisine. “My compliments to the chef, Captain Maldemerde,” he said. “This red caviar is superb.”
Sister Stella was shaking me the way a hungry Collie worries a bone.
“But you haven’t even tasted it,” Zelda Poppins responded to Mario Brandino.
“I refer, good lady, to the bouquet. That is the true test of caviar. Not the taste.”
My eyes met those of Mister Jewish. The bouquet! Unusual, no doubt, what with the red caviar’s recent proximity in the freezer to the corpse of the radio operator!
Sister Stella smiled as tumescence mounted.
“Well, it tastes delicious, too!” Zelda Poppins shoved a forkful of red fish eggs at Captain Maldemerde’s mouth. “Open wide!” she instructed flirtatiously.
The Captain’s head jerked back like the recoil of a cannon. “No!” he protested. “Red caviar makes me break out in hives!”
Sister Stella played “This Little Piggy . . .” with my you-know-what.
“Try it! You’ll like it!”
“I would sooner become a cannibal!”
Mister Jewish choked on an artichoke heart.
“This Little Piggy went Whee-whee-whee-whee . . .”
“Be a good boy now. Eat your caviar.” Zelda Poppins pushed the fork toward the Captain. When he opened his mouth to protest, she shoved it all the way in and dumped the contents. Reflex made the Captain gulp and swallow the caviar. “There now. Wasn’t that good?” Zelda beamed satisfaction.
“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” Maldemerde moaned. -
The caviar was removed and the soup was served. Buddy Fluker put his elbow in his dish of consommé and castled to the queen side. Sister Stella took dainty sips from the soupspoon held in her right hand while her left hand encircled my penis under the table and started rubbing its length.
The gentle rhythm was having an effect which threatened to become noticeable by the time we started on the main course. “Do the Sisters of the Zodiac go in for séances?” I asked Sister Stella.
“No. Why should we?”
“Because,” I hissed into her ear, “if you keep it up, this table is going to rise!”
“You mean if you ‘keep it up.’ ” Sister Stella laughed.
Blaze Buxbocks was glaring at us. “I can be very zealous!” she snarled at me.
So could Sister Stella! Her hand performed a thrilling tattoo variation, and my knee jerked.